Episode 61: Reducing The Perception of Risk – The Art of Pre-handling Objections

The Perception of Risk

If your audience subconsciously perceives a risk – and it could really be anything, from a typo to something much more significant – you are likely to lose their attention. And of course, that will significantly reduce your ability to persuade them to take the action you want them to take. Whether this is a sales situation, an executive presentation, or a pep talk for your team, ensuring you deal proactively with potential perceptions of risk – also known as pre-handling objections – goes a long way toward improving your success.

In this episode I give you the psychological background to the perception of risk and why it’s so important to address, and lots of techniques for dealing with it.

Customer Story Cheatsheet

In sales situations, many of these techniques make use of the stories of your successful existing customers. To learn to elicit and tell better customer stories, you might want to download my customer story template and cheatsheet. It’s a great guide to asking the right questions that ensure your customer success stories aren’t boring or formulaic.

Links to Resources

I mentioned a number of resources in the episode, including an amazing movie clip, and several of my earlier podcast episodes:

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